Report: More seniors live in poverty

An alternative census estimate shows that more of America’s seniors than originally thought are living in poverty — and that means the poverty rate could spike under certain Medicare reforms, a new analysis finds.

The estimate, which takes into account health spending and regional cost of living, finds 1 in 7 seniors lives in poverty. It was previously thought that just 1 in 10 did.

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And a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis released Monday breaks this poverty data down for seniors state by state — and notes that under some proposals to reform Medicare, these poverty levels would keep climbing.

“Under the supplemental poverty measure, which deducts health spending from income, poverty rates could increase if beneficiaries were required to pay higher cost sharing or premiums for Medicare,” the analysis states.

The supplemental poverty measure is the alternative estimate released by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2011.

The supplemental measure differs from the bureau’s official estimate in a number of key ways: It factors in out-of-pocket health spending, along with taxes and government benefits, and looks at poverty standards within the regional cost of living.

“The supplemental measure suggests that a greater share of seniors may already be struggling financially than is conveyed by the official measure,” Kaiser’s analysis states.

Kaiser finds the supplemental measure’s poverty rates for those 65 and older are higher in every state than the rates in the official estimate.

And in 12 states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nevada, Wisconsin and Wyoming — the supplemental poverty measure for seniors is twice as high as the official estimate. In New Hampshire, the percentage of seniors in poverty is three times as high under the supplemental measure.

The Kaiser brief says it’s meant to provide context for the many spending proposals being tossed around — particularly those that focus on shifting costs in Medicare and paring down Social Security benefits.

It also notes that adopting “chained CPI,” which slows the growth of Social Security benefits, would most likely make for higher poverty rates for older seniors across both census measures.